


Not Alone

by negickapologist (neganstonguething)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, NZ au, grown men cry a lot, it's always cancer, negan is stupid, no zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 20:31:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13348971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neganstonguething/pseuds/negickapologist
Summary: He just didn't want Rick to suffer the way he had all those years ago.MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, you have been warned.





	Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me in a dream. I couldn't stop writing. 
> 
> I cried.
> 
> I'm so sorry.

Bundled up to the nines in a winter coat, Negan still doesn’t feel like his body can escape the bitter cold. The chill is in his bones, and when he shivers, it comes from the inside out. Negan feels cold and angry and downright _pathetic._

He exhales a sharp grunt of frustration as he snuffs out his cigarette on the concrete sidewalk beneath him. A woman nearby bitches him out for littering in front of her store, but her words are fuzzy by the time they reach Negan’s eardrums.

He storms down the busy street, crossing to the next block, and then finds himself leaning against the brick wall of his destination.

It’s a bar he used to visit all the time up until about a year ago. Negan’s best friend, Simon, runs it. Simon had bounced ideas for names off of Negan for months. Eventually, he’d settled on _Gelatò,_ with an accent for no reason on the ‘o’. Negan had spent a long time teasing him about how little sense it made, but funky ass name or not, it had acquired clientele almost immediately.

It’s still pretty popular. As Negan rests against the wall, he sees the bouncer letting in a steady stream of people. The line doesn’t seem to be getting smaller.

Negan still hasn’t decided if it’s a good idea to drink or not. He supposes he could always go in and bullshit with Simon for a while, but that’d be a waste of a goddamn cover fee if you asked him.

So…one drink. Maybe two.

“…Negan?”

That voice chills Negan faster than any amount of bitter cold ever could hope to. It freezes him right down into his spine and then explodes in warmth that washes over him like a morning shower. He feels sick, and he’s not sure if it’s the nausea he’s been warned about or just the sheer presence of someone who makes Negan so absolutely crazy with affection.

When Negan turns his head to regard the voice, his entire body feels like it’s going to wither at the sight.

Rick looks as beautiful as ever, with his dark gray parka pulled around his body and his shape still somehow visible in the puffy material. He’s got the hood down, letting in all the cold air, and to top it all off, he’s got his hair pulled back into a lazy ponytail. His eyes gleam in the multicolored lights emitted from the sign glowing above the bar. He’s got his mouth hanging wide open in shock, and for a moment, Negan finds himself mildly bitter that the man had just happened upon him.

How cliché and beautiful would it have been if Rick had been spending the past month searching for Negan?

God, Negan is a piece of shit…

He sighs, trying to ignore the thrumming of his pulse in his head and the anxiety building faster every second. “…Hi, Rick.”

No, Rick’s not just going to leave it at that. Of course he’s not. What kind of idiot _would_?  If Rick had pulled the same stunt he had, Negan would have been hunting the fucker down until he’d found him. It wouldn’t have just been some accidental meeting outside of a bar Rick’s friend ran. Negan would have wanted _answers_ , and he’d have wanted them _immediately_.

That’s what makes him so awful. He didn’t leave Rick with so much as a scrap of information. He’d _thought_ about explaining. Really, he had. But the words didn’t seem to make sense even in Negan’s head. How in the hell was he supposed to bring them to his lips, or to even put them on paper or in a text message?

It all boils down to the simple fact that Negan hadn’t wanted to leave. Everything had been perfect. But… _no._ Negan clears his throat, reassuring himself that he’d done the right thing. He makes a point to avoid looking at Rick’s face, because those eyes will undoubtedly make him question himself no matter what decision he made in the past.

Rick finally speaks.

“…Can we talk?”

Yep, that’s exactly what Negan has been afraid of. Rick wants to _talk_. He wants an explanation. He wants Negan to break the news, and he knows that it’s going to be ten times worse on Rick now that Negan’s gone off and disappeared for a month like this.

He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to see the look on Rick’s face. He should’ve never let this man fall in love with a disaster like him.

“Actually,” Negan crooks his head toward where the bouncer is stamping some girl’s hand after taking her ID, “I was about to go in here and have myself a few drinks. Maybe later—”

“No.”

Negan doesn’t have to look at Rick to know his expression has gone from that soft look of surprise to outright irritation. He can picture those blue eyes narrowed into a scowl and his nostrils flared. When he finally _does_ look up, he’s not wrong. Rick looks angry and impatient and a few shades of hurt that make Negan fight back vomit as his stomach twists into approximately five tightly-wrought knots.

“ _Not_ later,” Rick insists behind bared teeth. “Not another time. _Now_. I think I deserve that much, Negan.”

Negan crams his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and with an amount of effort that makes him sick with grief, pushes himself away from the cold stone of the bar’s brick wall. From his pockets, he withdraws his cigarettes and lighter.

“…Fine. You fucking win, Rick. Let’s _talk._ ”

\--- --- --- --- ---

A more logical Negan might have suggested they retreat to somewhere indoors to talk, but a more logical Negan probably also wouldn’t have started this whole mess in the first place. A more logical Negan would have likely taken comfort in Rick’s presence rather than trying to escape it.

But he and Rick have retreated to a nearby park instead of indoors somewhere. With the moon high up in the sky and low clouds threatening snow, the park is empty aside from Rick and Negan. The park is one of those aesthetically-pleasing ones with tree-lined paths and fountains strewn everywhere. It’s the kind of place where happy couples stroll down the sidewalk with their fingers intertwined and hot chocolate clutched in their free hands.

It’s not the place where a coward should be walking alongside someone whose heart he’s broken.

Rick’s looking straight ahead as they walk, his cold eyes half-lidded and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his parka. His hood is pulled over his head now. Negan notices he’s got the scruff of a beard forming along his jaw and chin, and he looks tired. More tired than a forty-four-year-old single father of two should look.

“You’re pale,” Rick comments dryly. He’s still staring ahead.

“I’m cold,” Negan answers, taking a drag from the cigarette hanging loosely between his lips.

“You’re stupid,” Rick replies, and Negan feels the edge of harshness to each word catch in his chest like a serrated knife. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me,” Negan retorts sharply.

“I’m not an idiot, Negan.” Rick stops walking. They’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, roughly fifty feet or so from one of the park’s fountains. It’s not running right now, but it still looks nice in the dim lighting the barely-visible moon provides them with.

Negan dares to meet Rick’s gaze. His stomach clenches threateningly at the sight of the piercing blue eyes boring into his own.

“You’re an asshole,” Rick starts. “I’ve always known that. But you’re not the sleazy jerk who just up and leaves for no reason. I know you’d tell me if you wanted out. Somethin’ is wrong and you’re keepin’ it to yourself, and I’m not gonna let you anymore. So, stop with the shady _bullshit_ and talk to me. You’re _supposed_ to talk to me. I’m here for you, dipshit.”

Negan doesn’t speak. He doesn’t want to do this. It’s the whole reason he took off in the first place. He can’t see Rick react the way he had when the same thing had happened to him. He can’t watch Rick go through that. He doesn’t want to see this destroy him like it had Negan himself so many years ago.

So how come if it feels like it’s the right thing to do, it feels so goddamn wrong right now?

“How’d you find out?” Rick tries, and even though Negan can tell he’s just trying to get answers from a different angle, it’s calming. Clearly, he’s already got an idea what’s going on.

“…It was an accident. Hadn’t been to a routine check-up in a long-ass time.” Negan figures Rick could probably remember the exact day Negan had visited the doctor if he thinks about it all enough. It hadn’t been long after that that Negan had been given his diagnosis and decided to get the fuck out of Dodge.

…Why hadn’t he just left town?

“What’d they find?” Rick isn’t looking at Negan anymore. They haven’t started walking again, but Rick’s got his gaze turned down and to the left, toward the dry fountain in the near-distance. He’s biting his lip, and Negan thinks he looks stunning, even lost and angry and afraid like this.

Negan inhales sharply, and the words quiver as he exhales them. “Rick…please don’t make me do this.”

“ _I need you to._ ” Rick begs, every word heavy like it’s weighed down by ice. “Negan, don’t do this to me.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Then _help_ me understand.” Rick grits his teeth, and Negan’s throat suddenly feels like it’s made of sandpaper.

“Goddamn it…Rick, I can’t—”

“You’re a fuckin’ _coward!_ ”

When Negan stumbles backward and falls on his ass on the ground, he realizes that he’s just as shocked that Rick had shoved him as Rick looks. He glances up to see wide, shocked blue eyes glowing in the darkness, shifting from Negan’s face to the sidewalk, to the cigarette and the few embers still burning at the tip of it and the ashes scattered around it.

Negan watches Rick sink to his knees in front of him. He sees the quivering in the man’s lower lip.

“You’re gonna die,” Rick realizes aloud. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

Negan bites his lip. He tastes blood. Rick is sitting in front of him, his hands up in the air but not moving, as if he isn’t sure what he should do with them. As if Negan himself is too fragile to be touched. Because they both know that the little shove Rick just gave him wouldn’t have been enough to knock Negan off his feet a month ago.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” He admits. “I remember when Lucille told me the news…time stops in your head, Rick. The world stops making sense. You look back on everything you’ve ever done in your entire life and try to think about where you went wrong, and what you could have done to prevent it from happening. Difference is, I did a lot of shit wrong—I was a shitty, disgusting excuse for a husband. You, on the other hand…Rick, I don’t deserve a second of the fucking attention you give me. I don’t deserve this night with you, and I don’t deserve the year you’ve given me. And you don’t deserve to suffer on my goddamned account.”

Rick looks like he wants to shove Negan again, but he doesn’t. He just flops onto his ass and scoots closer, shaking his head. “Some of the shit that comes out of your mouth doesn’t make any sense.” Negan feels Rick’s fingers curl around his own, taking both of his hands up into his own. Negan watches him cup them together and breathe heavily into them, warming the palms in a way that spreads that comforting heat through Negan’s veins and up into his arms and chest. His heart clenches as he fights to prevent it from bursting inside his chest.

“You forget I lost my wife, too,” Rick reminds Negan, but he remembers. “I didn’t get to go through some long medical process where I had to watch her decline. But I didn’t get to say goodbye. That’s somethin’ that haunts me every day, Negan. It’s been six years, and I still find myself wishin’ I’d have gotten to hug her one last time.”

Negan knows where Rick is going with this, and as he realizes what he’d been putting Rick through, he feels guilt come down on him in waves so heavy that he wonders if it’s raining. Thankfully, Rick’s still got Negan’s hands clasped between his fingers, so the chill doesn’t have a chance to get an icy grip on him all over again.

“I’m not sayin’ you’re lucky you got to watch Lucille die,” Rick continues, and Negan finds he admires the resolve in the smaller man’s voice. “I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been on you. It’s hard enough that you thought you’d better fuck off before inducing the same feeling on me, so it must be pretty bad. But I need this, Negan. If I’m gonna lose you, I want every second I can get before you go. Come back _home_. Tell me how much time we’re lookin’ at. Give me a chance to say goodbye.”

_Goodbye._

Jesus fucking Christ, that hurts to think about.

Very soon, Negan is going to have to say goodbye. Not just to Rick, but to everything. To Simon and his stupid nonsensically-titled bar. To his coworkers, and to Judith and Carl. To the cheap cigarettes he smokes when he gets particularly stressed out. To alcohol and fast food, and to shitty drivers and that one stop light not far from where he and Rick live that doesn’t quite work properly. To holidays and vacations and work days.

He’s going to die. And for a whole fucking month, he’d planned on doing it _alone_.

What the fuck was he _thinking_?

“Negan…” Rick’s shaky voice pulls Negan out of his thoughts, and wide eyes find the blue ones that make his head swim they’re so dazzling. He feels Rick’s warm hands leave his own, but come to rest on his cheeks. His thumbs brush away moisture Negan hadn’t realize had been running down his cheeks. “…Don’t cry. Please…”

He pulls Rick into his arms without thinking, there, and hugs him as tightly as his exhausted body will allow. He buries his face in Rick’s shoulder, and he feels Rick do the same. In that cold, cold weather, they cling tightly to one another and cry together.

And then Rick takes Negan home and they slip into their bedroom. It’s late enough that Judith and Carl are already in bed, so there are no introductions. Negan doesn’t have to explain himself all over again.

As Rick kisses Negan’s neck against the wall directly inside their room, he speaks up. “Is it cancer?”

Negan shoves Rick’s parka off his shoulders and curls his hands around the material of the cheesy argyle sweater vest he sports beneath. He pulls it up off his back. “It’s always cancer,” he grunts bitterly.

“How long do you have?” Rick arches his back out and tugs the sweater off his shoulders, taking the long-sleeved white undershirt off with it. He sweeps back in and pushes Negan up against the wall, kissing him. Negan finds how much stronger Rick feels against his newer, weaker frame.

“A month ago?” Negan asks against Rick’s lips, because he hasn’t seen a doctor since. “A few months. It’s in my lymph nodes.”

He doesn’t fight it when Rick urges him away from the wall and back toward their bed. He does, however, hesitate when Rick tugs away his own jacket and moves to pull his T-shirt off.

Their eyes meet, and Negan bites his lip. “It’s metastasized.”

“I know,” Rick frowns, and then pulls at Negan’s shirt again. Negan doesn’t fight him this time. He just drinks in the pain and recognition on Rick’s face once he bares himself to him. “…You’ve lost weight.”

“I’m sorry,” Negan practically croaks.

“Shut up.” Rick guides him back until his legs hit the bed, and then shoves him down onto the mattress. He kisses him sweetly, and Negan feels weighed down by the love and need and _sorrow_ in every movement of the younger man’s lips on his own.

They take their sweet time. Rick kisses every inch of Negan’s skin, from his chest to his thighs to his face. When they shift so that Rick’s on his back and Negan pushes himself inside of him, Rick cries. His sobs are soft as he urges Negan to keep going—‘ _stop and catch your breath, Negan. It’s okay, no, I want this. Please make love to me.’_

Negan isn’t sure if it’s easier now or if it’s harder. Each day passes too quickly. Negan breaks the news to Carl. He and Rick don’t intend for Judith to find out, but ever the curious child, the little girl listens in and Negan has to explain everything to her later.

It’s easily the hardest conversation he’s ever had to have in his life. Not because he thinks the little girl who’s only known him for a year is going to have much to miss once he’s gone, but because this little girl doesn’t understand death to its fullest extent yet. Negan figures that if anyone had wanted to explain it to her, it’d have been Rick.

Judith takes it harder than Negan expected. Her big eyes well up with tears and she sniffles, glaring at her lap.

Negan doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t deserve any of them.

When walking becomes a challenge, Negan refuses a wheelchair. It’s expensive, and he’s not going to be around long enough for it to be put to use. Rick disagrees, but he takes Negan’s wishes in stride. He and Carl help Negan get around the house, and Judith brings him drinks and blankets. Negan feels awful that a six-year-old has to see anyone like this, but she’s tough about it. Even when he has a particularly bad day and spends most of his time hunched over a trash can, she’s right by his side.

Negan’s not sure what he expects. Maybe something bad happens like in the movies and he ends up being rushed to the hospital, where he spends his last few moments surrounded by loved ones. Or maybe he just up and croaks one day. Shit, maybe he’ll go in his sleep and that’ll be it. Maybe it’ll be painless, and he’ll be done. He won’t have to see everyone’s faces before he goes. He’ll just…go.

What he’s not ready for is fear. He’s not ready for the night when he wakes up and crippling anxiety has itself cinched tightly around his chest and throat. It’s not pain, and it’s not nausea. It’s just _fear_. Somehow, in the back of his mind, Negan knows he’s about to die.

He’s spent the past month on the couch, having been too weak to climb the stairs. He screams, and Rick comes running. Like ever the loyal boyfriend he is, Rick is at his side in mere seconds.

“What? Negan, _what?_ What’s wrong?”

Rick looks concerned, and Negan can even make that out in the blurring of his vision. He sees smears of blue dancing around as Rick glances down at him frantically. The bright colors of Rick’s eyes and face linger like smudged paint. It makes Negan dizzy and uncomfortable, and even more afraid than he already was. He just wants to feel grounded again.

Rick screams for Carl before Negan can say anything, and that tells him that he looks about as shitty as he feels. He hears Rick drop to his knees and feels the gentle press of the smaller man’s lips on his forehead. Rick brushes Negan’s messy hair out of his face, cups his scratchy chin, and rests his forehead on his lover’s. Negan closes his eyes, his shallow breathing easing somewhat.

“It’s okay. We’re gonna go to the hospital, alright?” Rick’s voice is so soft and soothing, and Negan admires his calm. He doesn’t remember how he was when he and Lucille had to make their final trip to the hospital, but he knows it wasn’t this.

Rick is amazing. Negan loves him so very much.

At the hospital, everything’s a blur. Lying flat in a stretcher, Negan hears talk of ‘comfort cares’ and ‘morphine’. _“It’ll relax him—make him comfortable during the process,”_ a doctor explains to who Negan guesses is Rick. Whatever they gave him in the emergency room has him too tired to open his eyes and look for sure, though.

He opens his eyes some time later to the white tiled ceiling of a hospital room. A glance down at his right arm tells him he’s hooked up to some sort of IV drip. Negan doesn’t think much of it. He’s calmer, now, and he feels like that’s what matters.

Across the room, Judith is asleep in Carl’s lap. Carl’s got his attention focused on his phone, but when Rick shifts next to Negan, so does his son. As Rick sweeps in close and touches Negan’s face, Carl gently places his sleeping sister on the couch and moves to stand on the other side of the bed.

“Hey,” Rick’s eyes are red. He’s been crying. Negan’s chest feels heavy just looking at him. “Are you thirsty?”

Negan wants to talk, but his body feels so fuzzy that it’s like he can’t. His muscles don’t seem to be listening to his brain. It’s frustrating, but all he can manage is to shake his head. He’s so tired. He just wants to go to sleep.

“Negan, you need to drink,” Carl tries.

Negan wants to scoff. ‘ _Kid, it’s not like I’m coming out of this. Water doesn’t mean shit to a corpse.’_ Instead, he just shakes his head again.

He falls asleep once more. His body feels heavier, and he feels less in touch with the world. He can feel the chill in the air around him. Someone outside the darkness of the world in Negan’s mind says he’s running a fever. There’s something cold on his forehead. His chest is rattling. He can feel his own rapid breathing.

Is he dying?

He can’t move a muscle. He can’t open his eyes. What is Rick doing? Are the kids okay?

Someone’s crying. It’s not Rick. Is that…Carl? Goddamn, kid…

When Negan was younger, he’d broken his arm. The narcotics the doctors had given him for the pain had worked wonders and made him feel hazy and comfortable. High. He’d liked the feeling so much that he’d tried two. It had damn near killed him. He’d been unconscious for a long-ass time, and when he’d finally come to, he’d been unable to move without passing out. Until the effects of the medicine had left his system, he was stuck like that.

This is how he feels right now. Unconscious and somehow high at the same time. He can’t move, and even his breathing feels labored.

Rick and Carl are both crying, now. Negan can feel the weight of Rick’s head on his shoulder. Rick’s hand strokes his face. A kiss is pressed to his throat.

“He’s so feverish…” Negan hears Carl whimper from not too far away. God, why can’t he just hug the kid? Just one more time?

It’s as the world slips away a little more and their voices grow fuzzy that Negan gets to hear the last words his brain will ever process. It comes in a series of shaky breaths, a sob, and then Rick’s voice, distressed and weak and desperate.

 _“I love you so much, Negan._ ”

Dying would have sucked so much more if Negan had done it on his own, but as his mind gives up and slips into its final sleep, he finds himself wishing he hadn’t had to break Rick Grimes in the process.

_‘I love you too. Be strong, baby.’_


End file.
